Improving Sunset Beach Through the Years
Blog written by Rich Benson. Rich Benson served Washington State Parks for 38 years retiring in 2017 as the Area Manager for Lake Sammamish State Park. Rich continues to serve state parks through his active participation in Friends of Lake Sammamish State Park.
Over the last 10 years, visitors to Lake Sammamish State Park have observed many changes occurring in the portion of the park identified as Sunset Beach. First, there was a new bathhouse and sandy beach. Shortly thereafter came the always popular new play structures and native vegetation. Currently, park staff is working on replacement picnic shelters and other improvements that will interfere with visitors’ enjoyment of the park during construction, but will be well worth it when work is completed later this year. All of this is for the benefit of hundreds of thousands of visitors who enjoy the park every year.
This area of the park hadn’t been given this kind of attention since it originally opened in the early 1950s. When the park first opened in July 1952, this was all there was to the park. There was no Tibbetts Beach, no boat launch or ballfields, no group camp, no trails. What the first visitors had when they arrived was a rustic picnic area, a small swimming beach and a bathroom as well as a very large parking area. Those hoping to launch a boat had to use the marshy southern end of what later became the larger beach. Overall, not much different from what visitors to the park 15 years ago found, maybe now just a little larger.
Prior to this area becoming a state park, this area had been part of John Anderson’s dairy farm. For over 40 years, John and his wife Addie had a large dairy operation and sent most of their products to Seattle by rail. The family member who took over the operation of the farm after the Andersons passed away in 1923 allowed the local residents of Issaquah to use this portion of the property as a place to swim and picnic, so it was the place to hang out long before it became a state park. Once it opened as a state park, the new I-90 floating bridge allowed visitors from all over the Seattle area to come swim and recreate on what became a very popular beach. Later, the beach was expanded, and a new restroom was built. Two new picnic shelters were added, and boaters could now use the new launch in another part of the expanding park. The state park became busier and busier.
New property acquired in 1965 allowed for the development of a new swimming beach, picnic area and picnic shelters in the mid-1970s. Park users could spread out and enjoy the grounds in a more relaxing setting. But visitors kept coming, particularly in the late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s when on a sunny weekend day in the summer over 35,000 people would often come through the gates, mostly headed to Sunset Beach. There could easily be 40 – 50 company and group picnics every summer weekend day. It wasn’t long before Sunset Beach needed some sort of face lift. Age and heavy use led to the deterioration of the facilities, beaches and grounds and park visitors responded by finding reasons to stay away. Park visitation declined and people’s experiences were not as positive. State Parks wanted to reverse this downward slide and in 2007 prepared a master plan for the entire park. This plan called for the renovation of the entire park, starting with Sunset Beach, as it was the oldest, largest and most heavily used portion of the park. A few years later, the first of the projects were funded and completed and subsequent projects have also been funded and completed over the last decade. Which brings us to this summer and fall, when much of the final work should be completed and Sunset Beach will provide an improved experience for all park visitors.